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Global Initiatives

IHEP recognizes that international efforts to improve institutional transparency, accountability, and financing can help to inform our nation’s own efforts to improve college access, affordability, and student success, especially for underserved populations. Therefore, IHEP regularly contributes to global dialogues on institutional quality, improvement, transparency, and equity. Key initiatives related to these efforts are listed below.

International Ranking Systems Work (2002-present)

IHEP has been involved in the international discussions about college ranking systems since 2002, using the lessons learned to inform United States policy and practice. In collaboration with the former UNESCO-European Centre for Higher Education, IHEP helped establish the International Rankings Experts Group (IREG) and published the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions to promote a system of continuous improvement and refinement of the methodologies used to conduct these rankings. IHEP has also focused on how rankings impact the decision making structures of higher education institutions and whether federal and state policy-makers take rankings into account in developing their own assessments of higher education institutions. IHEP continues to be an active participant in IREG and the international ranking dialogue.

Global Policy Fellows Program (2006-2009)

Through the Global Policy Fellows (GPF) program, IHEP helped strengthen higher-education policy around the world. The program provided an opportunity for committed individuals—whose backgrounds included working at government agencies, non-government organizations, professional associations, and university-based research centers—to make thoughtful contributions to local and global higher-education policy research. Participants represented the following countries: Brazil, Mongolia, the Netherlands, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, and the United States.

Measuring Global Performance Initiative (2007-2009)

The Measuring Global Performance Initiative (MGPI) offered a new understanding of the rapidly changing global context for higher education learning and credentialing and the impact of these changes on U.S. higher education. MGPI explored two key areas of interest: what U.S. higher education can learn from the reconstruction of European higher education carried out under the Bologna Process; and potential ways to construct more enlightening international comparative indicators of participation, pathways, and attainment in higher education.

Global Center on Private Financing (2006-2008)

The Global Center on Private Financing of Higher Education (GCPF) focused on access around the world by examining how private capital can help widen access to higher education as a supplement to government funding. The center culled data and trend analysis of private-financing strategies and tools in order to provide guidance to nations seeking new knowledge about how to expand and raise the quality of their higher education systems.